House & Home

Birth Town Brief History (as related to Kythen):

Birchwood was a town on the borderlands, set at the edge of a large forest. For the most part, residents were self-sufficient, though as time passed, the society became slightly more segregated: the potter (human, lvl2 expert) traded ceramic work for food, repairs to her home, clothing, etc. It was a very communist society, where everyone helped each other, regardless of the relative “cost” of doing so, except for the innkeeper Branhyl (human, lvl1 Bard), who profited off of travelers (but in exchange, he used the money he earned with his inn and tavern to buy items that the townsfolk could not make for themselves).

A young human rogue, Amaya, appeared on Branhyl’s doorstep, well into her third trimester. Her…condition prevented her from being able to do her usual…work. She plays down her already-meager skills; most of the locals were aware of the work to eradicate the Thieves’ Guild in Cherrybridge, the nearest city (nearly two fortnight’s ride from Birchwood). She admits to being a new member to the Guild, forced to join due to a slip-up that resulted in another member of the Guild being gaoled (she was forced to take his place); the member of the Guild who was arrested resulted in the uncovering and subsequent destruction of the Guild. She demonstrates a few slight-of-hand tricks and a shadow of her acrobatic skills (which are currently hampered due to her pregnancy, but sufficient to impress the innkeep). Branhyl offers to let her stay in one of back rooms in the stables and gives her a job helping in his inn.

A few weeks later, Kythen is born, and it was immediately apparent that his father wasn’t human. The birth was brutal, mostly due to the horns on his head and the bony ridges along his jawline. Thankfully, the fringed ears’ cartilaginous spines were soft at birth and none of the bones were terribly long. He also had scarlet scaling around his eyes, down his neck, and across his shoulders. The hue continued down his spine and sternum, though the scales there were more like a leathery hide than individual scales.

At first, many of the townsfolk were appalled by the baby, but his curiosity and possessiveness of the oddest of objects appealed to them and they eventually came to accept him, though those with any knowledge of dragons (and knowing that reds were the greediest of all) remained wary and carefully locked away their possessions. As he aged and the childishness faded, he worked alongside his mother and learned her trade and the townsfolk’ acceptance of him waned. At the age of 13, after being caught with his hand in the cookie jar, as it were, of the local constable, he was given a choice: leave or work for the constable. He agreed to work for the constable, so long as he was paid in some way (preferably with shinies).

Some months later, a rogue werewolf lord and his pack attacked Birchwood, ravaging the town and leaving no structure standing and no one left alive, or so they thought. They underestimated the young half-dragon’s ability to survive a bite, however. And so our story begins…

Session 1: Devastation

Kythen wakes amid the rubble of the gaol where he worked. After looking around a bit in the rain, which has mostly dampened the fires that destroyed many of the town’s buildings (the ones that weren’t ripped apart), he finds a gnome hooked hammer, a punching dagger, a saddlebag, some partially burnt bandages (which he bandages the wound on his shoulder with), an ampoule of antitoxin (1 dose), and his mother’s thief toolkit. Wet, injured, and weary in body, heart, and spirit, the young half-dragon burrowed under some rubble where a fire had been protected from the rain, curling up in the heat to stay warm.

Session 2: Decisions, Decisions

Kythen wakes to find that the coals he had bedded down in are all but dead, but the rain has stopped. The sun has come out and shines down all too cheerily on the flattened village. Three roads lead out of town: one leads northwest toward Cherrybridge (where his mother came from), one into the forest to the south, and one east toward unknown (but presumably inhabited) lands (why else would there be a road there, after all?). Supposedly, there’s a town called Solestoke that way.

It’s eight days until full moon.

Encounters:

1 grig which made his saddlebag talk and laugh, stole a loaf of bread, and made him dance for 20 minutes; it ran away when he threatened it

On the Road:

Two hours into his walk down the road to Solestoke, Kythen is attacked by a ghoul. During the battle, he slashes his right arm with his own claws after a failed attack before killing the ghoul. Traveling a few hills farther, he finds a stream laden with cress and a copse of trees with mushrooms and a large nest. During his attempt to reach the nest, he is dive-bombed by an eagle, the watchful mother of the eggs in the nest. After being knocked from the tree, Kythen gives up and goes back to the road, making a sort of stew out of the cress and mushrooms.

Three hours later, he is accosted by a trio of kobold scouts who demand, in their tongue, that he give them all his valuables as payment for passage along the road. Unable to understand their words, Kythen reacts badly when one of them jabs him with its spear. He grabs the spear and flails about with it, not hitting anyone and garnering a deep cut on his unprotected thigh; the third kobold trips and loses its spear and Ky runs away. Hiking up and down taller, tree-laden hills, his fails to notice a worn footpath off into the trees (which would have led to a solitary ranger’s hut where he could have gotten some healing and a hot meal. Instead, he climbs to a sort of peak as the sun is setting and spots a stream.

Fashioning a fishing line from some fine rope and a hook from his thieves tools, Kythen finds some earthworms and catches himself a fish, which he bakes in clay from the stream bank with some mushrooms before settling down to sleep.

Experience: 300 for the ghoul, 100 for the koboldsItems: one kobold spear (+1 melee, 1d6-1/x3)

The Old Man:

Ky wakes up to a blazing fire and an apparently old man sitting on the other side. “Who the hell are you and what do you want?” he asks the man. The man deflects the question by pointing out the foolishness of sleeping beside the road in an untamed forest and putting breakfast—a skinned rabbit—on to roast over the fire. Ky describes the attack by the ghoul and kobolds when the old man (Quorry Silentread, the male half-elf ranger whose hut is at the end of the trail that Ky missed the night before) comments on his physical condition. He gets Ky’s name during their conversation.

Quorry asks Ky why he’s on the road. Ky responds that he’s heading to the nearest village. The old man points out that the nearest village is Birchwood, a day’s walk in the direction he’d come from. Ky explains that the village has been destroyed and Quorry hustles him back up the hill and down the trail to his hut. He proceeds to question Ky about the attack while tending the young man’s wounds—what he heard, if he knew how many attackers there were, and so forth. When Ky describes the snarls and howls, Quorry curses and mutters “Arcanscape” under his breath. After several more probing questions, including whether or not Ky had been bitten or scratched by any of the attackers, he explains that he suspects the destruction of Birchwood was the work of one Traster Arcanscape, a rogue werewolf lord who is on the most wanted list in several counties and who is being tracked by several folks, including mercenaries and bounty hunters; apparently, he’s gathered a pack. He explains that Ky has about 5 days until his first change and that it wasn’t Arcanscape himself that bit Ky, else he would have taken the young man with him.

Quorry gives Ky a choice: continue on the road, heading away from civilization, and hope that he doesn’t do something stupid during his first change, or stay with the ranger, locked up for the duration of his change. Ky chooses the latter and Quorry tells him to take a nap while the old man works on some sketches of the cell in which he will imprison Ky during the three days that his change will hold sway over him. Ky attempts to take a nap, but instead lays there, staring at the wall, until the old man stirs and states he’s done with the plans.

He leads Ky down into his cellar, hands him a shovel, hefts a pickaxe, and proceeds to begin chopping chunks of dirt out of the back wall. He instructs Ky to put the dirt in a couple of buckets, which they haul up and outside whenever they get filled up. It takes three days to dig the underground cell, and another two days to cut beams and supports for four walls and a ceiling. Quorry constructs a magically-reinforced and fire-resistant door for the cell. During these five days, the old man never once tells Ky his name.

As night falls on the fifth day, Quorry shepherds Ky down into the cell. The two buckets have been washed and filled with clean water and a haunch of deer hangs in the room. After wishing the boy luck, the old man leaves, placing several heavy furniture items over the trap door that leads out.

The First Full Moon

Ky, I never did find my notes on this section, although I know we did it, so I'm just going to summarize...feel free to flesh out if you remember more. The worst part is I have notes about the stuff Quorry did at this point in time, but not about Ky's nights...

Kythen was in the cell for three nights. He changed each night and pretty much destroyed the furnishings in the cell, including burning down the fire-resistant door. He was pacing inside, in human form, when Quorry returned to release him.